1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a hand held tool for expediting the sewing together a plurality of cloth laminations such as are found in the hand fabrication of a quilt.
2. Summary of the Prior Art
Quilting has been practiced for centuries. Most commonly, a plurality of squares or rectangles of colored cloths are sewn together around their peripheries to form the decorated top sheet.
The top sheet is overlaid on a liner, such as flannel, and a bottom are then sewed together to form the cloth, and these laminations are then sewed together to form the entire quilt. The stitches preferably form a uniform pattern across the entire area of the quilt, which requires thousands of hand stitches. In more recent times, enterprising manufacturers have printed a full sized sheet with an attractive decoration and this sheet is then sewn by hand stitches to one or more cloth laminations. The stitches are generally arranged in a square or rectangular pattern so as to simulate the old fashioned quilt when the product is finished.
In either event, thousands of hand stitches are required to complete a quilt and, in each stitch, the quilter must make sure that the needle penetrates all of the cloth laminations and then returns through the cloth laminations at a distance closely spaced from the point of entry so as to preferably give a relatively small stitch. Obviously, it is impractical for a quilter to pass the needle entirely through the cloth laminations and regrasp it on the underside of the cloth laminations and reinsert it on the return path through the laminations. Instead, the quilter generally wears a thimble, pushes the needle point through the cloth laminations in engagement with the thimble and then rotates the needle relative to the cloth so as to point the needle upwardly so that it may be pushed back through the cloth laminations. Such a time honored procedure requires the exercise of much diligence on the part of the quilter to insure that each stitch is substantially the same size as the preceeding stitch which, of course, contributes substantially to the aesthetic appearance of the finished quilt.
There has been, therefore, a definite need for a sewing or quilting tool for effecting the hand sewing of the plurality of cloth laminations to provide a uniformity of stitch which has heretofore been impossible to obtain except by the most skilled sewers.